


Leave the Nest

by madsthenerdygirl



Category: Aliens (1986)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-26
Updated: 2016-03-26
Packaged: 2018-05-29 07:07:57
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 8
Words: 18,601
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6364327
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/madsthenerdygirl/pseuds/madsthenerdygirl
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It's time to battle the aliens her way. And yes, the idea of this being a weird rite-of-passage that Fate has cooked up for her family has occurred to her.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This work was originally posted on fanfiction.net in 2012 when I was eighteen and is now being crossposted here with the rest of my work. This was my version of Alien 3, taking place about twelve years after the second film. Let's laugh together at my attempts to write action scenes, shall we?

"Miss Hicks." The university chairman stared down at her from his seat.

The girl in question tucked a stray lock of blonde hair behind her ear. She'd cut off the long strands, which had been down to her waist, about four years ago but she still couldn't manage to style it so that it didn't get in her face, despite being just shy of her shoulders in length.

She forced herself to remain focused on the professors and board members in front of her. Her entire academic future lay with them, and she had just one chance to impress them.

"We are assuming that you are familiar with the book  _Engineer_ , the magnum opus of the professor for which this scholarship is named."

"Dictated to her son in the last years of her life and considered a controversial work that has divide the scientific community for years, yes," the girl replied. "It's one of my favorite dissertations on mankind's origins."

"Is it now? Is that because you agree with it?"

"I never said that," the girl replied calmly. "Whether I agree with the late Professor Shaw's theories is beside the point."

"And what is the point, Miss Hicks?"

"The point is that it makes you think. As scientists, we struggle to try and understand the universe around us. Whether created by God or nature or something else, all that we can do is observe, document, and draw conclusions where we can. One of the most important traits of a scientist is that he can  _think_. He must have an open mind and be able to revise his ideas and beliefs based upon what he learns. Whether correct or not, the theories that Professor Shaw presents in her book make you think. They challenge you. In fact, they practically dare you to challenge yourself. You have to open your mind and either abandon your old views on the universe or strengthen your original views. That is why it is one of my favorite works."

Some of the men on the board nodded, but in agreement or not, the girl didn't know. Another man piped up.

"Miss Hicks, may I ask why you chose this specific scholarship?"

The girl gave a self-deprecating smile. "I won't lie to you, sir. I need a scholarship to get through university, especially with the degree that I want. You join the Marines or become a pilot because you want to, not because you want to get rich, and while my parents have always done their best by me we certainly don't have enough to get me through without financial aid. I was drawn to this specific scholarship because of the respect and admiration I have for Professor Shaw. She returned as the only surviving member of her expedition, years after she had left, all of her friends and family long dead. She could have been bitter, but instead she was loving and hopeful. She made this university into what it is today, a center for learning and enlightenment, be it through science, her own particular field, or the arts or humanities, the liberal arts, or even theology. In fact, this is the only university with a mandatory theology course. She felt it was so important that people understand the different religions and cultures of the world that she made it a mandatory study. I admire her immensely, and I hope that I can someday make at least a fraction of the impact that she made upon the scientific and academic world.

"That goal, sir, that bar that I set for myself, is why I chose this scholarship."

"And not the fact that it is also full-ride?"

The girl smiled again. "I did say we needed the money."

The man settled back, and one of his colleagues spoke up.

"It says here that you studied, among other things, anatomy, biology, chemistry, physics, and engineering. That's quite a wide field, and we're only touching the surface."

"I have a wide range of interests."

"Tell me; with anatomy, did you actually participate in dissection?"

"I have performed autopsies on various animals as well as human cadavers."

"Says here in your personal file that you once performed emergency surgery and saved your friend's life at a party. How did that happen?"

"She's deathly allergic to peanuts, and while she didn't eat anything with nuts, she got a little drunk and made out with a guy who'd just had a peanut butter cookie. She had a severe reaction and I had to perform an emergency tracheotomy."

"I take it that it was successful."

"She's in her sophomore year of studying law at Yale."

The original board member that had been interrogating her now spoke up again. "There is one indiscretion on your record that we must, unfortunately, attend to. It says here that at the age of sixteen you joined in with a few other students at your high school in setting fire to a Weyland-Yutani factory."

"That was an accident." The girl took a deep breath. "We didn't mean to set it on fire. I will, however, plead guilty to trying to shut down the factory."

"Can you give us a reason why?"

The girl stood firm, her shoulders back and down, her head high, her back ramrod straight. Military straight, just like her father had taught her.

"I've seen the way that WeYu treats people. It had no respect for human life, and will do anything to turn a profit. It is after power, and will stop at nothing to squeeze every last drop of coin it can out of whatever it feels might be profitable. It goes beyond basic negligence. Twice that I know of, someone on orders from WeYu executives have taken action that has caused, or would have caused, the death of several people.

"I'll admit that I was young and foolish. What I did was wrong, and the ends do not justify the means. I promise you that whatever my feelings towards that company, or any other corporation, I will never do anything that will reflect badly upon your school. I will conduct myself with the utmost honor and responsibility. You have my word."

The men considered her for a long time. She stood calmly, staunchly, but not disrespectfully. They whispered back and forth to one another for a minute or two before facing her once again.

"Miss Hicks," the head member said. "After much deliberation, we have decided that you are the most deserving candidate for the Shaw Scholarship."

The girl looked like she just might burst with excitement. "Thank you!" She said. She calmed down and cleared her throat, speaking more evenly. "You have no idea how much this means to me. Thank you."

She nodded respectfully, and then exited the room.

As she made her way down the hallway, she heard footsteps behind her. She turned and saw one of the professors from her examination--the one that had asked her why she'd chosen to apply for the Shaw Scholarship.

"Miss Hicks?" He said.

"Yes?" She replied.

"I'm sorry to bother you, but I must say, I was quite impressed with your examination. And the essays that you submitted." The man stuck out his hand. "I'm Professor Charleston, by the way. You'll be attending my some of my classes this semester."

"Thank you. It's a pleasure to meet you," the girl replied.

"Is it all right if I call you Rebecca?"

The girl shook her head. "My brother called me that."

"Oh. No one else?"

"No one." The girl looked sad. "He died a little over a decade ago."

"I'm sorry to hear that." Professor Charleston looked genuinely sympathetic. "What, then, may I call you? I like to be on a first name basis with as many of my students as I can."

"Newt," the girl replied. She smiled. "Everybody calls me Newt."


	2. Chapter 2

_Keepin' outta trouble with eyes in the back of my face!_

_Kickin' ass in the class and they tell me I'm a damn disgrace!_

Newt sang along enthusiastically, blasting the music from her radio.

_They tell me what they think but they stink and I really don't care!_

_Got a mind of my own, move on, get outta my hair!_

The song was interrupted by an incoming call. The phone company's generic ringtone filled the car and Newt grinned at the caller I.D. on the electronic dashboard.

"Hi, Ripley!" She sang.

"Hey, there, honey." The voice of her mother was warm and strong, even through the electronic device. "Where are you?"

"I'm on my way to pick up Dad," Newt responded.

"Oh, great! Would you remember to pick up some oregano?"

"Please tell me you're not trying to make dinner again," Newt groaned good-naturedly. "You set fire to the oven last time."

"Need I remind you that I survived for many years before Bishop came along and decided to become our personal housemaid, and we will survive now that he's gone," Ripley said with mock sternness. The android had indeed insisted upon 'easing their return to civilization,' as he put it, mainly by keeping the house clean and running errands and fixing meals. About four years back a new line of androids had replaced the line that he came from, and last year he'd broken down. Unable to find the parts to fix him, they had been forced to say goodbye to their dear friend.

"Okay, I'll pick some up after I get Dad. Anything you want besides oregano?"

"Nope, that's it. Oh, hey, what did the board say? Did you get it?"

Newt grinned. "I'll tell you at dinner," she assured her. "Give Jonesy the Third a hug for me!"

"You spoil that cat way too much," Ripley said. She actually spoiled him more than any of them, but Newt didn't say that. Her mother was probably hugging and cuddling the orange tabby right that second.

"I'll be in touch," Newt said.

"Okay. I love you, baby."

"I love you too."

Newt terminated the call just as, in the distance, an immense complex began to rise out of the sand. Newt eased off the accelerator. You never knew when you'd have to pull off the road to make way for an army caravan.

Fortunately she reached the entrance of the base uninterrupted, slowing to a stop in front of the main guard gate. Newt rolled down her window.

"Hey there, Charlie."

"Hey, Newt!" The guard grinned. "Here to pick up your old man?"

"That 'old man' is your boss's boss," Newt reminded him jokingly. "And yeah."

"All right, come on in." Charlie started to raise the gate.

"Just like that?" Newt teased. "I could be a terrorist!"

"Newt, you come here a few times a week," Charlie reminded her.

"So? Someone could be hidden in the back seat, holding a gun to my head," Newt said with mock seriousness.

"I'll take that chance. In ya go, girlie." Charlie raised the gate.

Newt laughed. "Thanks, Charlie." She drove on through.

Seeing as her father hadn't taken his own car to work that day, she took the liberty of parking in the space reserved for his vehicle. Her slightly beat-up Jeep Wrangler stood out among the standard army vehicles, but not as much as it had at the university, where nearly every car was silver and all of them were younger than five years. She'd spent over two years working on her baby with her dad, breathing life back into the old shell, and she loved it almost as much as the aforementioned family cat.

Locking the car by pressing her fingerprint to the electronic sensory pad on the driver's door handle, Newt proceeded to make her way through the base. She waved to couple of people that she knew, and shouted insults regarding manhood to some trainees doing group exercises under the watchful eye of a Drill Sergeant. The Sergeant gave Newt a wink and a thumbs up, but never ceased his yelling.

She'd been coming to this a couple times a week ever since her father had been stationed there, and she knew everybody. Of course, she did have her favorites…

"Hey, Newt."

"Jonathan!"

Newt let the young man scoop her up into a hug. She'd known Private Jonathan Dallas since they were fourteen. He had a good couple of inches on her, although he was still on the short side, with light brown hair that never fully obeyed him no matter how much hair gel or combs he used. He'd had a bit of baby fat when he was younger but Marine training had cleaned him up quick, giving him tone and muscle and leaning out his face. His warm, soft eyes, however, had always stayed the same.

"I'm going to take a wild guess here," Jonathan said, setting Newt back on the ground, "You're here to see your dad."

"Yup," Newt said. "Is he in his office?"

"I wish. If he were he could actually oversee this stupid shipment delivery." Jonathan snorted. "No, Corporal Higgins escorted him to oversee a weapons demonstration about five miles out. He should be back in an hour."

"An hour?" Newt groaned. "Mom'll kill him. She's cooking dinner."

"Again? After what happened last time?" Jonathan grinned. "Well, if at first you don't succeed…"

"She set the stove on fire. I do not need a repeat of that."

"Hey, I guess setting fires runs in the family–"

Newt punched him in the shoulder. "That was an accident, and you know it. I didn't know those materials were flammable!"

Jonathan laughed. "Okay, you win that one. If you want, I can escort you to his office and you can hang out there. Snoop in his drawers, see what he got you as a present…"

"Ugh, he won't tell me! All he said was 'you earn that scholarship, I'll give it to you,, and he won't even give me the tiniest hint," Newt griped as she allowed Jonathan to lead her through the compound. Seeing the look on his face, she frowned. "You know what it is, don't you?"

"I have my suspicions," Jonathan said cryptically.

"Tell me!"

"Nope." Jonathan made a zipping motion across his lips with his fingers. "He's my boss, remember? He'd have my hide for spoiling his surprise for his precious little girl."

Newt gave Jonathan a glare, having long since learned that she couldn't pull off the puppy-eyed pout. He just shook his head.

"Not gonna work, Newt. You haven't seen him on a bad day. He's fucking scary."

Newt rolled her eyes and groaned and did her best to cajole Jonathan into at least giving her a hint, but eventually gave up. They moved onto the topic of their futures--namely, how Jonathan was doing with his goal of trying to get promoted to Private First Class, and Newt about her classes in college.

"I'm really looking forward to my biology class, because I have a few--hey, what's that?" Newt stopped, pointing towards a large truck that was in the process of being unloaded. The proud insignia of the Weyland-Yutani Corporation (recently shortened to WeYu) was stamped on the side of the vehicle, as well as each large box. The overlapping white 'Y' and yellow 'W' had been the subject of many racist jokes over the years, seeing as before the merger, Weyland had been an American company, and Yutani a Chinese one. After the death of Weyland's President, Meredith Vickers, Yutani had bought the corporation to save it from ruin, merging them and making the company that was stamped on every box containing energy, weapons, or engineering products.

"That? Oh, just the new delivery I was telling you about. WeYu's got this new biochemical weapon for us to test out."

The primary job of the outpost--and the reason it was situated in the middle of the desert fifty miles outside of the city--was that it was a testing site for weapons for the government. Most of the men were U.S. Army, the few that weren't being the Marines that made up a small, specialized group within the compound, of which Jonathan was a member.

"Biochemical?" Newt said slowly, eyeing the boxes. "What kind?"

Jonathan shrugged. "Not sure. They imported them from a factory that's rumored to be off-planet."

"Off-planet?" Newt stopped. "What planet is it from, then?"

"Again, I'm not sure. I only know what little they told me. I'm just a Private, remember? All I know is that it's based in a former colony called Hadley's Hope."

Newt's body completely froze. Jonathan realized that she had not only stopped walking but was standing stock-still, and frowned. "Are you all right?" He asked concernedly.

"What… what else do you know about," Newt waved her hand towards the boxes. "This?"

"Um, well, they're being moved into a containment room before we start a preliminary examination of the weapon," Jonathan said. "Biological, chemical, machine or whatever, examination comes first. You have to know–"

"Your weapon inside and out," Newt finished for him. "I was raised by a Marine, Jonathan, I know. First thing he set out to do when we got back to Earth was to teach me how to use a gun."

Jonathan noted the phrase 'back to Earth' but said nothing. In all the years he had known Newt, he had never heard anything much about her life before her parents adopted her. Whenever he asked, she'd either changed the subject or brushed him off, saying that she'd tell him another time. Now was definitely not that time.

"Do you want me to show you the room? You can't go inside, but you can take a look," Jonathan said. "I know you don't trust WeYu, Newt, but trust me, it's an army base. Everything's under control."

Newt shuddered involuntarily. "It's not the insignia on the boxes so much as what's in them that's got me worried."

Jonathan placed a hand on the small of her back and guided her towards the containment room. "Here," he said, leading her around to the side. "There's a viewing room you can look through."

The viewing room was nothing more than a hallway with floor-to-ceiling bulletproof windows on one side, allowing the occupants to see into the containment room. A couple of officers were standing by, including one that Newt recognized.

"Hey, Hurt," she said, nodding to the Army Private.

Hurt nodded back. Everyone knew and liked the Staff Sergeant's daughter. He looked over at Jonathan. "What's she doing here?"

"She's waiting for Staff Sergeant Hicks to return from inspection, sir. She expressed concern about the shipment and wanted to take a look. We'll only be a minute."

"As you were," Hurt said agreeably, turning back to look at the containment room.

A couple of men were beginning to unpack a stack of boxes, all with the WeyYu logo glaringly obvious, almost mocking with its bright, shining colors. Newt unconsciously leaned in, trying to see what was inside.

One of the men set down the contents of his box on the examination table. When Newt saw it, all of the breath went out of her.

"Oh dear God no…"

Jonathan gave her a strange look. "Newt? You okay?"

The man began to carefully prod at the immense, dark gray colored egg. He wrote a few things down on a clipboard. As he did so, the top of the egg opened up, blossoming like a flower.

Newt made a choking noise.

The man, absorbed in his work, did not notice. The others in the room went about their work, also oblivious to what the egg was doing.

"Newt?" Jonathan asked again. "Newt, what's wrong?"

Newt could only manage a strange, strangled word that no one understood. This wasn't happening, this was  _not_ happening. It was all some kind of horrible nightmare. It had to be. Why, just last week she'd dreamed about her stomach bursting open and had woken up screaming, her sheets drenched with sweat. Ripley had spent the rest of the night holding her so that she could go back to sleep.

But this wasn't a dream. This was real. Like she was watching a horror film, knowing what would happen but unable to look away, Newt watched the man notice the egg's, well, movement, so to speak, and peer down inside it.

The weird, crab-like creature leaped onto the man's face, its long snake tail whipping around and wrapping itself around his throat. The unfortunate man fell to the ground, twitching desperately for a moment before the creature inserted its eight probes, four on each side of the man's skull, and he fell unnaturally still.

The room was utterly silent.

Completely on instinct, Newt began to scream.


	3. Chapter 3

Jonathan grabbed Newt by the shoulders, turning her and looking her straight in the eye. "Breathe, Newt, breathe. It's okay."

Newt stopped screaming but continued to breathe heavily. Panic was beginning to flood her, sweeping her up and carrying her away.

"You have to kill him," she insisted. "It's the only way to stop it. You have to kill him and pack all of these back up and destroy them! And you have to do it now!"

"Kill him?" Private Hurt strode over. "What the hell is she talking about?"

"You have to kill him!" Newt repeated. "It's too late to save him, you have to just shoot him now, now before it gets out and grows and oh God…" Newt took in a shuddering breath, trying not to descend into panicked sobs.

"I am not killing one of my men. What the hell are you talking about?" Hurt demanded.

"It's called a Facehugger. At least, that's what we called it," Newt tried to explain. "Once it latches on, it's too late. It'll… it'll…"

"A what?" Hurt frowned. "Are you telling me you know what that is?"

"Yes!" Newt said desperately. "Those… those  _things_ , they're monsters. They'll kill everyone here if we let them. You can't let the rest hatch! You have set fire to them, fire is the only definite way to kill them, please!"

"She's hysterical," Hurt decided. He looked up at Jonathan. "Take her somewhere she'll be out of the way until Hicks gets back. It's his daughter, he can deal with her."

"You don't understand!" Newt screamed. She felt Jonathan pick her up around the waist from behind. She screamed even more, trying to wriggle out, but he had a tight grip and she couldn't fight her way out, not when she was this hysterical. She could hardly even think straight with this fear clawing at the edges of her mind, driving her crazy. A part of her wanted to find a vent to hide in.

"Let me go, Jonathan, let me go! Stop! You have to kill him! Give me a gun! I'll do it if you won't! You have to kill him!"

"Private Dallas, you get her out of here!" Hurt bellowed.

Jonathan dragged Newt out of the room. It was slow going, as she was kicking and flailing like Jonesy when it was time for his bath. The farther away from the examination room they got, the more frantic she became as she felt her chance to kill the man and end this nightmare slip away.

Jonathan carried her to her father's office, setting her down and closing the door, pressing back up against it. Newt tried to pry him off so that she could get out, but he wouldn't budge.

"Look, Newt, I don't know what's wrong, but you have got to calm down," Jonathan said.

Newt couldn't hear him. There was a roaring in her ears, like the sound of the ocean couple with the screams, screams that she'd heard echo through the vents of the colony… the screams of her friends, and the colony workers, and her schoolteachers, and oh, the screams of her parents and her brother… She was drowning in it, drowning in the echoes of their screams, and she would continue to drown until she stopped it, killed the man before it was too late, stopped the cycle before it began…

Someone grabbed her by the shoulders and began to shake her. As if through a thick, muffled barrier, she could hear someone calling her name. Slowly things faded back into focus, and she realized that she was staring into Jonathan's face. He didn't look angry, just extremely worried. He was worried for her.

_He thinks I'm crazy._

"I'm okay," she said slowly. "I'm… I'm okay. Jonathan, I'm okay."

"No, you're not. I'm not an idiot, Newt." He peered into her face. "What was that?"

Newt shuddered violently. "You do have to kill him, Jonathan."

He shook his head. "I trust you, Newt, really I do, but I can't just barge in there and shoot a man. I'd be court marshaled."

"My dad would pardon you," Newt insisted. "Please, Jonathan, you have to help me. You have to kill him before it grows!"

"Newt, what is this 'it' you keep talking about?" Jonathan demanded.

Newt shook her head wildly and started to cry. Jonathan pulled her into a hug, making soothing sounds and murmuring calming words. Newt's body refused to stop trembling. It was like she was freezing cold and she couldn't get warm, and all that she could do was shiver.

A garbled voice came in over Jonathan's radio. He kept one arm wrapped around Newt, but pulled out his radio with the other.

"Private Dallas. Send your traffic."

"Dallas! Get your butt over here! We got a situation!"

"Ten four. Wilco."

"Break-break--all personnel to the examination room. Say again--all personnel to the examination room!"

"Five by five. Over," Jonathan replied. Similar responses were coming in from the others. "I have to go, Newt. You stay here."

"I'm not a child," Newt snapped. She'd survived on an alien-infested colony for thirty fucking days as a child. She could take care of herself.

"Stay here," Jonathan repeated. "I don't want to worry about you."

He opened the door and slipped through before Newt realized where he was going. "Jonathan don't–!" The door was closed and locked before she could finish her sentence.

"…Don't go there," Newt finished in a whisper. She sank to the floor, scrabbling backwards on her hands and feet until she was pressed into the corner. She curled up into the fetal position, her arms wrapped around her legs and her face buried in her knees. She was scared. She was scared for herself, and scared for Jonathan, who was going with the others to face something that he didn't understand.

Was this how Ripley had felt when she'd gone with Hicks and the others to Hadley's Hope? Had she felt this dread, not only to be facing the subject of her nightmares once again, but also knowing that the others around her had no idea what they were up against?

Ripley…

Newt pulled out her cell phone and dialed. Her hand trembled as she pressed the device to her ear.

Her mother picked up on the second ring. "Hi, honey! Did you get your dad?"

Newt choked out a sob. "Mommy." It was the only word that she could think of.

"Newt?" In the kitchen at home, Ripley stopped what she was doing, turning off the stove and leaning against the counter. "Newt, are you okay?"

"They're here," Newt burst out, sobbing in earnest now. "They're here, Mommy, they're here! WeyYu sent them! It got one of them… it got one of them and now Jonathan's gone and they're all going to die and– and– and–"

"Newt," Ripley said firmly, praying with all of her might that what she thought she was hearing wasn't true. "Newt, I need you to calm down, honey. What's there? What's going on? Where's your father?"

"He's out on a weapons demonstration," Newt said. "He won't be back for another half an hour." She was crying so hard that each word came out as she exhaled, because then she had to suck in breath to get out another sob. She was hyperventilating, unable to get herself back under control. "Mommy, you h-h-have t-to come…"

"I will come, honey, I will, but first you have to tell me what the matter is," Ripley said. She could hear Newt's uncontrollably frantic breathing through the phone. "Breathe, honey, breathe."

Newt focused. Breathe in, breathe out. Breathe in, breathe out. Breathe in, breathe out. Panicking would get her to the middle of nowhere, but it definitely wouldn't get her out of there alive. She had to clear her mind, be levelheaded and as calm as possible.

"The aliens," she said once she was able to speak normally. "They brought the eggs back from the colony. Some must have survived the fire and were… I don't know, dormant or something. WeYu brought them here for testing as a biochemical weapon, and now one of the--oh God, one of the Facehuggers has got a guy and they're not prepared. They locked me in Dad's office and they  _won't fucking listen_  to me and…" Newt felt her control slipping and took deep breaths. "Please come, Mommy," she whispered. "Please, please come."

She felt like she was a child again, relying upon Ripley to save her. And she had--no less than three times. She wanted to do that again, to sit tight and know that Ripley would come and make everything okay.

"Okay." Ripley gripped the counter so tightly that her fingers hurt. "Okay. Newt, honey, I'm coming. I'm going to get you out of there, I promise. Your father will be there soon and we're going to take care of you. We'll get you out, Newt, I promise you."

Newt swallowed. "Okay. Okay, Mommy."

"I love you, baby. Just sit tight, I'll be there."

"Okay Ripley," Newt whispered.

"I love you.  _Don't leave that room_."

"I love you, too."

Ripley ended the call, and then quickly dialed another number, pressing the phone tightly to her ear.

* * *

 

Staff Sergeant Dwayne Hicks answered the phone with his headset, sitting in the front passenger seat of the army vehicle as it sped through the desert. "Hicks," he answered.

"Oh God, Dwayne, please tell me you're on your way back to base."

"Ellen?" He frowned. "As a matter of fact, I am. Is everything okay?"

"WeYu found more eggs. They found eggs, Dwayne, and they brought them to your base."

Hicks swore so violently that the man driving the vehicle looked at him sideways. Hicks ignored him. "How'd you find out about this?"

"Because Newt called me."

Hicks' blood froze. He leaned forward. "Where is she?" He demanded.

"She's currently locked in your office. She tried to warn them but I think she got a little crazy about it." Ripley remembered her own reactions when faced with the creatures a second time. She'd been a little crazy herself, and she'd dealt with them as an adult, not a child.

"I'm on my way," Hicks promised his wife. If a single one of those sons of godless bitches touched his daughter, he was going to blast every last one of them to kingdom come and farther.

"I am, too."

"No. Ellen, you are not coming out here."

"Like hell I'm not. That's my daughter in there."

"Well, she's my daughter too." Hicks breathed slowly, trying not to blow up. It wasn't her fault this was happening. "Just, please stay home. I don't want you getting into this mess."

"I don't want either of you in this mess, and look at where we are," Ripley replied. "I've faced them before and I'll do it again if it means getting Newt to safety."

Hicks sighed. When Ripley made up her mind, it was pointless to argue with her. Ask anyone – hell, ask that queen alien or whatever it was.

"You let me know when you're a mile out, okay?"

"Okay," Ripley promised. Her voice wavered. "Please get her out."

"I will." Hicks terminated the call and turned to his driver. "Go faster."

* * *

As the base came into view, everything seemed normal. But when Hicks' vehicle pulled up to the guard gate, he could see a small group of soldiers arguing fiercely. The vehicle came to a stop and Hicks jumped out.

"What the hell is going on here?" He shouted. "Open that gate!"

"No can do," Charlie, the gate guard Newt had spoken with earlier, said. "I'm sorry, sir. When the situation became too much to handle, we called it in. In your absence, the Sergeant Major made the decision to quarantine the base."

"There are other men--our comrades, soldier--still trapped in there, if I'm not mistaken," Hicks reminded him sternly.

"I know, sir. But we have to carry out the orders. I'm sorry that we went above your head, sir, but you weren't here and frankly we weren't sure what to do. We've never seen anything like this."

"Yeah, that's exactly what I was thinking last time," Hicks muttered. "Did they say what our next course of action should be?"

"Make sure no one gets in or out until they come to take care of it," Charlie informed him.

"Right." Hicks nodded. "You boys stay here and do your duty. I'm going in."

Every single one of the soldiers stepped in front of him, blocking his way.

"But, sir… we can't let you in there," Charlie said. "You don't understand what's going on. It's… well, it's real freaky. Sir."

"I know what's going on, I've been through this before. Now let me through. My daughter's in there," Hicks insisted, trying to push past.

"Sir, with all due respect, if Newt's still in there then she's already gone," Charlie said.

"If you think that, then you don't know my daughter," Hicks replied grimly.

* * *

Newt stayed in the corner, hugging herself and trying to keep calm. Her mom would be there soon. Her dad might even be there already, trying to find her. She just had to breathe and keep calm. It would all be okay.

 _There weren't supposed to be any here. Earth was supposed to be safe,_  she thought.

_Yeah. And there weren't supposed to be any monsters under the bed, either. How well did that one work out for you?_

Newt shuddered and tried to push the thoughts out of her mind.

There was the sound of the lock turning. Newt jumped up, dashing for her father's desk, opening the top drawer and pulling out the handgun that she knew he kept in there. When the door opened she was ready, gun positioned, finger on the trigger.

Jonathan slipped into the room, closing the door behind him. When he saw Newt, he nearly jumped but managed to restrain himself. She could see the muscles in his jaw clenching and unclenching.

There was a long pause as they stared at each other. Newt didn't know if he'd been… well, implanted, so she kept the gun raised, ready to shoot anything trying to make its way out of his stomach wall.

"We should've killed the guy," Jonathan apologized. He was breathing heavily but trying, like Newt had been moments before, to keep his panic under control. "How the hell did you know what would happen?"

Newt slowly lowered the gun, tucking it into the pocket of her jeans. "I've been through it before," she admitted.

"Well you might want to tell us about it," Jonathan said. "The others want to see you, see if you can get us out."

"How many are left?"

"Ten. Including me, Newt, there are ten of us."

Newt swallowed. Ripley was coming. Her mom and her dad were coming. She just had to hang on until then. She just had to stay in the office until then. This room was relatively safe--the only way in or out was through the one door. There weren't even any vents. If she stayed there and waited, she'd be safe.

But would she?

Who knew what had happened during the hour or so that she was locked up? And the men… and Jonathan… she liked Jonathan. A lot. And even if she didn't, she couldn't just leave him and the others to die. She knew what to do, or at least, what to try to do, to stay alive. They didn't. Without her help, they would die.

Newt took a deep breath.

"Okay," she said. "Okay. I'll help you."


	4. Chapter 4

Jonathan led her through the base to the officer's mess hall. It was smaller than the main mess hall and was currently locked and bolted. Newt looked on every side of her--right, front, left, back, left, front, right, back, right--so that no one and no _thing_  could sneak up on them. Jonathan had his machine gun out and ready, and Newt had her father's handgun. The base was dark, and every shadow made her stomach clench.

"The electricity got cut. We're not sure if it was an accident, or a panicked soldier, or one of the creatures, but we haven't been able to boot it back up yet," Jonathan explained in a low voice.

Newt nodded. So, they would be in darkness. That put them at a distinct disadvantage. In the colony, the aliens had come out at night for a reason. Bright light was annoying, but they didn't rely so much on eyesight as on smell and sound. They did, however, know that their prey depended upon light to see, and so came out when it was dark.

And it was definitely dark now.

Her nerves were stretched so tightly that her body actually ached. A part of her wanted to just sink to the floor, boneless, and lie there forever.

"Newt? You still with me?"

She hadn't realized that she was eyeing the vents until Jonathan whispered back to her. Newt jumped guiltily.

"I'm here," she responded.

The door to the mess hall was shut and locked. Jonathan swiped his officer's key card. Each card allowed an officer to access rooms that the regular soldiers could not. The higher your ranking, the more access you had.

The door slid open, and they stepped through. Jonathan held his gun at the ready, reaching back to grab Newt and ensure that she was behind him.

"I've got a gun too, remember?" She hissed.

"Yours won't do much damage," Jonathan said.

"Neither will yours," she reminded him.

The door slid back shut behind them. Newt blinked once, twice, and allowed her eyes to adjust. On one of the tables was a large electric lamp, with papers spread all over it. The lamp cast a thin globe of white light about the room, illuminating a rack of hastily piled weapons, several pieces of electronic equipment, and the faces of various men, all with their guns drawn and pointed at them.

"Private Dallas." It was a statement, but almost hesitant enough to qualify as a question.

"Yes, sir. I've got New– Miss Hicks," Jonathan corrected himself halfway through her name.

Newt strode forward. "Put your guns down. They won't do too much damage anyway."

The men did lower their weapons, although she doubted they believed her about the damage part. Soldiers, she'd learned, were rather attached to their weapons. One of them stepped forward. "Corporal Marks," he introduced himself. "I'm sorry about the guns, but we couldn't take the risk."

"Of course." Newt nodded. "I'd expect no less."

Marks turned to the others. "Here we have Roots, Chaucer, Zeiss, Little, Holberry, Esperanzo, Brown, and Kazaki."

They all nodded at her. Holberry and Brown were the only girls, one being thin and hard, the other a lot taller and broader but softer in the set of her jaw and the look in her eyes. The men ranged from Hispanic to African American to clearly Jewish, and were anywhere from 5'8" to six feet.

"Nice to meet you all… I guess," Newt replied.

"Can you tell us?" Jonathan asked.

Newt turned to him.

"You know about them," Jonathan explained. "Can you tell us how to get past them? How to get out?"

Newt shook her head. "There's nothing foolproof, but I can tell you what I know. The best that we can do is to try what we can with the knowledge that we have."

"That you have," Jonathan corrected. "You're the expert here."

They all, by some mutual thought, sat down at the table with the papers and the lantern. Newt saw that the papers were actually blueprints of the complex, with everything from air vents to security codes and utility rooms.

Newt stood, unable to relax enough to sit. Her blood was buzzing and she felt slightly claustrophobic. She closed her eyes, taking a deep breath. She hadn't repressed her memories, but she had avoided thinking about them for years. Now she had to find a way to recount them without allowing them to strangle her sanity.

"When I was about three, my family moved to a new colony on LV-246, named Hadley's Hope. I think my parents were hoping to start a new life there. I heard them talking about it, but I don't remember much.

"It was nice on the colony. Lots of rules and not very pretty but I had fun. I loved my teacher and did well in school. I had lots of friends. My parents would often take my brother Tim and I with them as they explored the area, looking for stuff to salvage and sell. I didn't know it at the time, but it turned out they'd had orders to search a specific area. They found this… I don't know. It was huge, and old, and derelict. I'm pretty sure now that it was the Engineer spaceship that Professor Shaw spoke of, but…"

Newt shook her head. "Anyway, Timmy and I waited in the vehicle like we were supposed to, while Mom and Dad went to check it out. I remember that we were arguing about playing Monster Maze. Timmy kept saying that I cheated, and I kept saying I was just the best. It's funny, what you remember later on. I can recall every word of that argument, but I couldn't tell you how we got back to the colony after Mom and Dad got back. He had a Facehugger on him. It was the first time I'd ever seen one. Mom had dragged him all the way back and was yelling into the radio. It was the first time I'd seen her panic or be frightened. I saw that… that thing on Dad and I… I just started screaming.

"The next thing that I remember, we were back in the colony and they were taking Dad away. Timmy was so quiet. I'd never seen him be this silent. He looked at me and said, 'Rebecca, is he going to die?' I told him that Dad wouldn't die, but he didn't believe me. So I left him with the babysitter Mom had grabbed when she went with Dad, and I crawled through the air ducts. I was good at that. I used to use them to get all over the colony, just for fun. Nobody knew how to get around better than I did. I knew every corner of that place.

"I crawled over to the hospital wing and found the room where my Dad was. They kept trying to pry the thing off him, but they couldn't. Its pincers were… they were embedded in his skull. They were paralyzing him, too, giving him a kind of toxin to his brain--I remember that exactly. It was… it was all I could do not to scream and give myself away. They tried everything, but they weren't prepared, and because of the tube down his throat if they weren't careful he wouldn't be able to breathe and… oh God, it was just awful. My Mom kept screaming at them to do something, and the doctors just didn't know what was happening.

"I crawled back to Timmy and told him that the doctors were taking care of things. He made me promise that," Newt swallowed hard. She was not going to let herself cry in front them. She'd cried enough. "He made me promise that I would keep checking on Dad, and that I would tell him the truth. I promised, but I couldn't tell him. How could I tell my brother that our Dad was dying?

"When I went back… I was just in time for the grand finale. The Facehugger was gone, and my Dad was just lying there, talking with my Mom and the doctors. They were asking him questions and everything seemed fine. I was so happy. I was sure they'd gotten it off, and everything was going to be okay. I turned to go back and tell Tim but then… oh God. He started screaming, and making this weird gurgling noise, and clutching his stomach and writhing on the bed. Mom started screaming again, and the doctors ran and held him down. His stomach stretched--I swear to God it started to stretch out--and then blood blossomed all over his chest and this tiny, horrible little creature burst out. Everyone just reeled back and stared at it, but I was looking at my Dad. I saw how, when the doctors let go of him, his body just kind of… fell. It collapsed against the hospital bed and I thought, my Daddy's dead. Then that fucking baby alien gave this weird screaming noise and skittered away.

"I went back to Timmy as fast as I could. I told him that Dad was okay, but he stomped his foot and yelled at me and told me not to lie. 'I'm not a baby, Rebecca!' That's what he said: 'I'm not a baby.' So I was going to tell him what really happened when Mom came in with a bunch of others.

"I don't remember much after that until we were all barricaded in one of the sub-level storerooms. We sent out a distress signal and were told that the Marines were on their way, so we all just settled down to wait. A bunch of the guys, ones that knew how to use a gun, took whatever weapons we had and stood guard outside.

"After about three days some people opened the barricade to check on the guards, make sure they were okay. They were dead, all of them, their chests all burst open just like my Dad. A few had huge bits of them missing, like the heart or liver or some limbs. The creatures got in once the barricade was open, and they started attacking everyone. I saw one of them grab my Mom. She kept screaming at us to run the entire time, even when it started eating her. I grabbed Tim and we got to running like she said, but at some point I lost him. I don't know how. I just remember reaching a vent and climbing inside and turning back to pull Timmy in and he wasn't there.

"I feel so guilty about that. I could have kept him safe in the vents; I know I could. I knew those like the back of my hand. I stayed safe in those for thirty days with those bastards running around. I would have kept him safe. He would have liked Dwayne and the other Marines a lot. But I lost him, and he died. He would have been lucky if the aliens ate him."

Newt remembered the dreams where a Facehugger attacked Timmy, or where her brother was screaming for someone to kill him as a Chestburster emerged. Then there were the dreams where Tim was yelling at her, blaming her for his death, begging her to save him and asking her why she hadn't helped him. She shook herself, gripping the edge of the table and forcibly bringing herself back to the present.

"I stayed in the vents forever. I later learned it was thirty days but at the time it felt like my entire life. Rebecca was some other girl, a girl with friends and family and a happy life. I was a different girl. I lived in the air ducts, in a little nest of odds and ends I'd made for myself, stealing food and hiding, listening to the screams of the others die away into silence. This was my life now. It was like Purgatory, an in-between place of darkness and shadows. I wasn't dead or living. I was just… there.

"Then the Marines arrived. I hadn't seen anyone in such a long time… I think I kind of forgot what other people were. Everything was a predator. They located me by their movement detector or something like that. Dad--I'm sorry, my adoptive father, Staff Sergeant Hicks, only he was a Corporal then--he reached for me and grabbed me, but I bit his hand and scurried away. Ripley was more determined and followed me to my little nest of junk. She grabbed me and held me and wouldn't let me get away. She kept telling me that everything would be okay. For some reason… I believed her.

"They took me back to be examined by the medic. I was surprisingly fine, it turned out. Borderline malnutrition, but I was fine. They all seemed really shocked, but Ripley was just… happy. Like if I could get out, stay safe, then they could, too.

"She looked after me the entire time. Everything kept going to shit but she was always there, taking care of me. Afterwards, when we'd gotten out and back to Earth in cyro, she asked me if I wanted to live with her. I said yes. About two years after that Dad finally got the guts to ask her to marry him--God, I swear he was more nervous about that then facing the fucking xenomorphs--and we've all just… been happy." Newt nodded. "Yeah. We've been happy."

She gestured around her. "And now WeYu had to go and fucking screw it all up again. You know what they did to me? While I was napping with Ripley the locked two of those fucking Facehuggers in the room with us, to get us pregnant with those horrible monstrosities and carry 'em back to Earth. And now look. They've managed to finally bring their stupid precious bioweapons home.

"I lost everyone that I cared about and lived like a feral cat for a month thanks to those monsters and that company. They were the ones who told my parents to go look at the alien shipwreck. They tried to kill me for a profit." She looked over at Jonathan. "You want to know why I hate WeYu? You want to know my story?"

She slammed her hands down onto the table. "There's your fucking story," she snarled.

Newt realized that she was letting her control slip away, and she stalked away for a moment, focusing on her breathing. To his credit, Jonathan didn't get angry with her for her comment to him. Instead he walked over to her, laying a hand on her shoulder. "We'll take 'em down for this, Newt," he promised her. "There's no way that they can cover up their involvement in this. But right now we need you. You know them; you know what they do and how they hunt. We have no chance without you."

Newt gave a bitter laugh. "That's what they told my Mom. 'You're the expert, Ripley! You can help us!'" She snorted. "That worked out well, didn't it? Only four of us made it out of there, and my Dad was in the hospital for a month 'cause of acid burns."

Jonathan gently turned her around. "You're smarter than you give yourself credit for, Newt. They're the reasons why you study zoology, isn't it? You want to know them. You want to understand how they work. A fucking army man raised you, for crying out loud. You can help us. I know you can."

"But what if I can't, Jonathan?" Newt asked. "What if I can't?"

"All I know is that with you, we have a chance. It might not be much, but it's better than no chance at all," Jonathan insisted gently.

Newt closed her eyes. What would Ripley do? Hell, Newt knew what she would do. She'd already done it.

Newt opened her eyes and strode back over to the table.

"Okay," she said. "First, physical stuff: appearance, strengths, etc. Those machine guns aren't going to do you much good. We used up every round that we had and we only got some of the creatures. It was fucking ridiculous. Fire's the best weapon against them."

Newt moved the lantern, examining the blueprints. "They don't rely upon light or dark--eyesight isn't their primary sense--but they know that we're light sensitive, so they use that to their advantage, hunting in the dark. Of course, if we use light, then they know where we are. So it's a lose-lose situation. Our best bet is to saddle up with flamethrowers or other fire starters on our Smart Guns, with anything non-automatic for close encounters. You don't want something that'll just rattle off rounds because you'll lose all your bullets and won't have killed shit.

"Their blood is acidic, so don't get it on you. You all make bets on how my Dad got those scars? Well pay up 'cause that's how he got them. Got another man that way too, a real smart-mouth named Hudson. Didn't kill him but it wasn't fun. It'll burn through anything, even armor, so if you get some on your suit you yank that stuff off as quickly as you can."

Newt continued to detail the various aspects of the aliens, explaining their weaknesses and abilities.

* * *

The car came skidding to a halt and Ripley barreled out, giving her husband just enough time to pivot and register her presence before she practically slammed into him.

"What's happening?" She demanded. "Where's Newt? Why is there a barricade?"

"Whoa, don't tell me you blew a transaxle getting here," Hicks joked quietly. He held her upper arms gently, keeping her steady.

Ripley calmed down a little at the joke. She had, indeed, kind of wrecked a few things the last time she'd driven a vehicle that fast. In her defense, she was trying to save Hicks and the others from an alien nest at the time.

He turned and pointed at the barricaded gate, keeping an arm around her. "I wasn't there when the shit hit the fan, so they called it in and went over my head. I can't go against orders from above and they won't let me go in by myself, so we've just got to wait here until the rest of the cavalry arrives and I can talk to my superiors."

"There's no time for that," Ripley insisted. "We have to get her out now!"

Hicks glanced over at the others, all milling about and excitedly arguing about the situation, and pulled his wife aside. "Look, Ellen, I know that, and you know that, but these guys don't. We can't start a panic. Does Newt have her cell phone?"

Ripley nodded. "She called me on it earlier. That's how I knew." Hicks' presence was calming her down. From the beginning of their association, he'd respected her, and by the end of things his mere presence was enough to help her to stay calm and feel just a little bit safer. "Should we…?"

"If we can establish contact, figure out where she is and what she's up to, we can at least keep track of her." Just like with the tracker bracelet.

Ripley took out her phone and dialed, pressing the speaker button.

"They have some kind of stinger on their tail that paralyzes. It'll whip out and try to impale–" Newt stopped talking as they all heard the strains of a phone ringing fill the space. Newt hastily pulled her phone out of her pocket, pressing 'talk' and holding the device up to her ear.

"Mommy?"

On the other end, Ripley let out a sound of relief. "Hey honey, it's me."

"Where are you?" Newt asked.

"I'm just outside with your father. They've barricaded the gates, cutting off any entrance or exit."

"Fuck."

"You watch your language, young lady," Hicks reprimanded automatically.

"Dad?" Newt asked. "Dad, you have to get us out! I've got Jonathan and some others with me--there's only about ten of us left--well, ten of them, plus me so that makes eleven but…"

"What weapons do you have?"

Newt looked back. "Some M41A1 Pulse Rifles, M41AE2s, M56A2 Smart Guns, grenades, everyone's personal handguns or whatever, and my favorite: a few M240A1 Incinerator Units. Oh, and I got your M4A3 pistol from your desk."

Jonathan held up a couple of guns. Newt nodded. "Jonathan's got an M5 RPG and M42A Scope Rifle."

"At least they're armed," Hicks muttered.

Ripley shook her head. "So were you."

"Newt, are you still there?" Hicks asked.

"Yes."

"Okay, Newt, honey? Can you find a way to the main gate?" Ripley asked.

"I think so. We've got blueprints here."

"Great. Make your way to the main gate. We're all right outside of it. If you reach it, we can open it and let you out before closing it back up again."

Hicks stared at her. "Ellen, you know they'll have our hides–"

"If your superiors find out. I think a handful of survivors slipping through the barricade won't be mentioned," Ripley argued. "Your men love you, Dwayne, and they won't want to leave survivors stranded. They'll open the gate and they won't say a word."

"Mom? Dad?" Newt said, a little frantic. "My phone battery's dying! I forgot to charge it in the car!"

"Okay, okay Newt, it's okay," Ripley said soothingly. "I know that you can handle this. You've done this before, and you can do it again."

"Just use what I taught you, okay?" Hicks interjected. "You've got the know-how, and those are good boys with you. You'll get out of here just fine, and we'll be waiting for you right outside."

"I promise you, Newt, it'll be okay," Ripley said. "Do you trust me, honey?"

"Yes," Newt said, nodding even though she knew they couldn't see her. "Yes, I trust you."

"Well I trust you," Ripley said. "I trust you to be brave and smart and strong, just like you've always been. So trust yourself like you trust me, okay honey? We'll be waiting for you right here, and if things get really bad, I'll find a way in to get you. I will always find a way to come and help you. I promise you, Newt, it's going to be okay."

"Okay," Newt said. "Okay, I'll get to you. I'll find a way."

"Good girl. I love you."

"Love you, baby girl."

"I love you too," Newt hung up and looked at the others. "They think everyone's dead, and my father wasn't there, so they constructed a barricade to keep the aliens in and called it in. Superiors ordered them not to let anyone in, and my dad can't do anything until the superiors get here."

The others nodded. "If you'll excuse me…" Newt said. She walked over to the far end of the mess hall and sat down. She'd have preferred somewhere private, but that wasn't really a luxury at the moment. She sat down on a nearby chair and cried.

She was terribly, dreadfully afraid that she'd just spoken with her parents for the last time.

* * *

Once Newt had recovered, she returned to the others. Jonathan looked like he wanted to hug her or something, but he let her be.

"Okay, boys and girls," Newt said. "This is the deal." She pointed to one of the layouts. "This is the gate we need to get to; it's the main entry gate. They've barricaded it, as I said, but I think if we show up there they'll let us slip by. My dad will order them to, anyway, and I think they have enough respect for him to do it. The problem is actually getting there. Now, we've got daylight on our side so crossing the open area will be easy, but getting through the building, especially with the power cut, won't be so much fun."

"Um… Newt?" Jonathan said. "Do you know what time it is?"

Newt frowned. "No. Why?"

Jonathan looked at the others, and then cleared his throat. "I, uh, well… it's night, actually. You were in the office for half a day."

Newt stared at him. "But I thought it was only about an hour!"

"Well… yeah, no." Jonathan grimaced.

Newt sighed. "Okay, so we don't have daylight on our side. That's fun. Still, the open area is the least of our worries. They like to prowl around tunnels and other places with dark, tight corners. They like to burst out of ducts and ceilings, ambushing you and taking you by surprise. So, like I said, it's being in the building that will be the most difficult.

"Our best bet is to go this way." Newt traced the path along the blueprint with her finger. "Past the storage room and indoors shooting range and through the trainee dorm, out the west entrance and across the open area to the gate. It's not the main route, but it's direct and quick, and since it's not the main route there will be fewer of the creatures."

"Why would there be fewer of them?" Marks asked.

"More people would have tried to escape using the main route," Newt explained. "More prey, more predators. They'll be expecting anyone escaping to go that way. It's not foolproof--no plan is foolproof against these bastards--but it's the best we've got."

Marks examined the map, and then nodded approvingly. "Awright, guys. Arm yourselves and make sure you've got firepower--literal firepower, I want you to burn these boys if we have to. We move quietly, no lights or sound if we can avoid it. Take no prisoners, boys."

Everyone nodded grimly. Time to head out.

"Anyone got a tracker?" Newt asked. "Something to see if they're around?"

Chaucer pulled out a device. "Yeah, I got one." He booted it up and checked the readings. "Hey…"

"What?" Newt asked.

"It says we got 'em in this room," Chaucer said. "But that can't be right."

Newt's blood ran cold. "The ceiling!"

Everyone pointed their guns upward as the monstrous creatures came crashing down on them, all claws and teeth and dark, shiny, metallic bodies that flashed in the light of the lanterns. Zeiss, Little and Holberry all immediately turned on their torches, sending spurts of fire everywhere and filling the room with smoke, reducing visibility to absolutely zero. Somebody--it sounded like Brown--screamed. It was smoke and fire and alien hides as mirrors, glinting menacingly for split seconds before vanishing again. It was a replay of what she'd glimpsed on cameras years ago, only she was there, now, here, and it wasn't just the smoke choking her. Newt ducked low to the ground to where there was less smoke. She'd been given a M41A Pulse Rifle, which she now held up at the ready as she backed slowly until she was against the wall. At least now nothing could get her from behind.

"Get out of the room!" She screamed. "We have to get out!"

Brown was screaming, staring down at the blood on her chest, a stinger protruding from it. Newt gaped as the stinger slowly slid back out of the soldier's body and Brown slumped to the ground.

"Die, you bastards!" Someone shouted, and a spurt of fire turned an alien into a reeling fireball, screaming inhumanly and whipping around. Newt continued to stare, transfixed, at Brown as the breath wheezed out of her, the blood soaking her camouflage jacket and oh God… it was even dripping on the  _floor_ ….

She didn't know how Jonathan got there, but he was suddenly at her side. "Run for it!"

The two of them took off, sprinting across the room until they reached the door. There they turned and began to fire at the creatures. Newt saw Kazaki get dragged up through the ceiling by one of the creatures.

"Come on!" She shouted. "Don't try and fight just come  _on_!"

They all backed towards the door as the creatures thrashed around. Marks and Jonathan slammed the door shut, pushing against it as the aliens tried to shove it back open again.

"It's not going to work," New said. "They're too strong." She snatched a grenade from Esperanzo's belt.

"Hey!" The soldier shouted, disgruntled.

Newt pulled the pin. "Open the door!"

Startled, Marks and Jonathan let go. Newt chucked the grenade inside, and then slammed the door shut again. Everyone joined in putting their weight on it.

A muffled 'boom' was heard as the door and walls shook violently. After that, all was still from the other side.

"Do you think we got 'em?" Esperanzo asked.

"Not all of them," Newt said grimly.

"Who're we missing?" Marks looked around. "Anyone?"

"Kazaki, Brown, and Little, sir," Jonathan said.

"No, not Little," Chaucer refuted. "I'm still getting readings. Low readings, but they're there."

Newt shook her head. "It's too late for him," she said. "Any of you seen a nest?"

They all shook their heads or stared at her. Newt swallowed. "They, uh, they take some back… and they cocoon them, so they can't move. Then they have an egg nearby and one of the Facehuggers emerges and… and…" She swallowed again, tasting bile.

"Aw, shit," Roots said.

"We have to keep moving," Newt said.

"Is she heartless or something?" Holberry asked. She turned to Marks. "We have to get Little!"

"She's the only one who knows what we're dealing with," Jonathan said defensively.

Marks looked back and forth from his soldier to Newt. He sighed. "The girl's right. We have to keep moving. If those things have Little in a… a nest, or whatever it was, it's too late."

Holberry shot daggers at Newt, who swallowed down more bile and turned, pointing. "This way."

They headed out.

* * *

"How long should we give her?" Ripley asked.

"An hour," Hicks replied, looking at his watch. "It shouldn't take her longer than that to get to us."

Ripley nodded. Hicks recognized the look on her face and spoke soothingly. "It's good Jonathan's with her. He's a good kid."

Everyone turned back towards the road as a rumbling sound filled the air, making it quiver and vibrate their lungs. Several humongous tanks came into view, rolling to a stop about ten feet from where everyone stood, waiting.

Hicks approached the vehicle and several men got out.

"Are you the commanding officer?" One of the men, much older, asked.

"Yes, sir. Staff Sergeant Hicks, head of the complex," Hicks said. He saluted. "I take it you're Master Sergeant Burkaway, sir?"

The man nodded. "Yes, Sergeant. I'll expect you to fill me in on how this happened."

"Well we'll be dragging some corporate execs before the Supreme Court, I can tell you that, sir," Hicks said grimly. "In the meantime, sir, what's the course of action?"

Burkaway looked over the massive complex. "I'll have to talk with you first, but I'm afraid we'll probably have to nuke the place."

"Oh no, you don't!"

Ripley marched right up to Burkaway. "My daughter and several soldiers are in there, and they're still alive. You are not nuking this place until they get out!"

Burkaway looked over at Hicks. "Who's this?" He asked.

Hicks took a deep breath. "My wife, sir."

"Lieutenant Ellen Ripley," Ripley said. "I was a pilot for most of my career. Worked for the Army, actually, after quitting my job at WeYu."

"Lt. Ripley, just what do you think you're doing questioning my authority?" Burkaway asked.

"One hour," Ripley said insistently. "Give them one hour to get out."

Burkaway looked at her, then at Hicks, who stood firmly beside her, and then back to Ripley again. He sighed.

"I have a son," he said. "Because of that, I will give you one hour. No more than that. If they're not out by then, we nuke it."

Ripley and Hicks accepted it for the leeway that it was. They knew they wouldn't get any more. Ripley looked over at the complex.

_Please, honey… please hurry._


	5. Chapter 5

Newt carefully examined the hardened resin. "We can't go this way," she said, standing up. "They've blocked it."

"How?" Marks frowned, taking a look. "Can we burn through?"

"We could try, but I don't know if it's flammable, and it would take too long. This stuff is thick. They use it to build the cocoons they trap people in," Newt explained. "I think they regurgitate it or something."

"Well, shit," Zeiss muttered.

Jonathan looked at her. "What do you want us to do?" He asked.

"Stay here." Newt looked up. "I'm too big for most of the vents now, but I'll fit in the ceiling ducts. I'll find another route while you sit tight."

"Sit tight? Nuh-uh. No way." Zeiss shook his head empathetically. "I ain't staying someplace long enough for them to find me."

"I got the tracker, Z," Chaucer said, waving the device. "We'll know if they're coming."

"I'll be right back," Newt promised all of them, but she looked at Jonathan. He nodded.

"Be careful," he reminded her.

Newt winked. "Aren't I always?"

"One accidental fire and a destroyed factory says, not so much."

She grabbed the resin, using it as handholds to launch herself up to reach the ceiling grate, shoving it open with her shoulders and vanishing through it. Jonathan grinned and called up to her.

"Is that how you snuck into WeYu and let everyone else in?" He asked.

Newt popped her head back down. "Nah. I had to shimmy up a drain pipe."

She withdrew her head and turned, taking a shuddering breath. There wasn't enough room for the rifle, so she pulled out the handgun. She was grateful that she hadn't revealed how gut-wrenchingly frightened she was.

"I am the ace," she whispered. "I am the ace of Monster Maze."

She began to crawl through the space.

* * *

The others all sat down, allowing themselves to rest for the first time since they'd been attacked in the mess hall. Holberry and Esperanzo rechecked their weapons, while Chaucer refused to take his eyes from the screen of his tracking device.

Roots grinned and nudged Zeiss. "Hey, man. That Hicks girl?" He jerked his head. "I'd tap that in seconds."

Jonathan had been staring up at the ceiling, but he immediately turned his head towards Roots. Marks saw the look on the private's face and raised an eyebrow.

"I mean, have you  _seen_  her?" Roots prodded.

Zeiss shrugged. "Dude, Hicks'll have your hide if he finds out you were thinking that about his daughter."

"Well Hicks ain't here," Roots replied. "And she's in an emotionally unstable place. She'll need a shoulder to cry on… someone to comfort her, y'know?" His leer made his meaning perfectly clear.

Jonathan pointed the barrel of his gun at Roots. "Hey," he said. Roots turned and looked at him. Jonathan's voice was low and steady, but dangerous. "You ever speak about Newt that way again, I will beat you so badly your own mom won't recognized you. You hear me?"

Marks nodded and smiled to himself. Everyone stared at the normally soft-spoken private who was now looking at Roots like he wanted to rip the guy's dick off. And there was no doubt in their minds that he would, if Roots gave him half a reason to.

Roots put up his hands in a gesture of surrender. "Sorry, man," he apologized. "I didn't know she was your girl."

"She's nobody's girl," Jonathan corrected. "She's  _a_  girl. That means respect. She's here, saving your sorry ass, instead of getting out of here like we all know she can. She can dodge them and get free, but instead she's leading us and risking her own life. So shut up and show a little courtesy to a lady."

Holberry smiled and fingered her gun. "Y'know, Roots, she ain't the only lady around here," she said warningly, aiming the barrel near his head.

There was a soft thud. Everyone whirled, guns at the ready. Newt came up from the crouch she'd landed in after she'd dropped from the duct. "I found another way," she said. "Most of the corridors are blocked with this stuff but there's one way that's clear. It's through the room that houses the ventilation systems. We'll have to get moving now, though, before they block that up, too."

Everyone got up and started to move, but Newt whipped out her rifle, holding it in front of Roots so that he couldn't cross. "Sound travels real well through the air ducts," she warned him. "You can hear everything people say, as if they were standing right next to you."

Roots paled a little. Newt removed her gun from his chest. "When my dad taught me how to use a gun, he made me put it together and take it apart in total darkness. He wasn't satisfied until I could do it in thirty seconds. He took me to a shooting range, too, every Saturday morning. If I hit the bull's-eye every time, he'd take me out for pancakes afterwards." Her tone was conversational, but her eyes locked on his like lasers. "I'm not carrying this thing around for decoration."

Roots nodded, watching as Newt moved on. He leaned in to Jonathan. "Dude, I think she'd kill anyone who said she was 'his girl'."

Jonathan just grinned. Newt wouldn't hurt a fly if she didn't have to, but watching her scare the crap out of a toughened army soldier was hysterical. Or, well, hysterical given that they'd had precious little to laugh about in the last half a day.

Newt led them down the twisting hallways. They knew this space well, every one of them, but in the dark with this massive threat hanging over them, it was as if they were in an alien world. It was all twisted and strange, everything familiar turned into a Wonderland of the most horrible kind. And in this Wonderland, you lost more than your head.

Newt continued to do the head-searching thing--back, right, front, left, back, left, front, right, back--her rifle held up and ready to go. Marks was right behind her but paused to look back.

"Hey, Chaucer! What's the hold up?"

Chaucer was looking at his screen. Newt reached the door that would lead them into the ventilation room, and then out.

"Um, guys…" Chaucer said slowly. "I think I know the reason they blocked all the other ways out."

"What?" Newt asked.

Chaucer pointed at the door she was standing at. "They're all right on the other side."

Newt strode forward and took a look at the tracker. "Sons of bitches…" she breathed. "That must be the nest. How did I not notice this in the vents?"

Esperanzo went up to the door. "What are you two talking about? Let's get moving." He grabbed the door handle.

"Don't!" Newt yelled.

The door didn't swing so much as burst open, the xenomorphs springing out like coiled springs. They grabbed Esperanzo, pulling him into the room with a scream. Holberry and Newt were the first to recover, opening fire on the aliens. Holberry's bullets found a soft spot and pierced the skin, spraying acid on both her and Zeiss--on their faces, their armor, and their arms. Both screamed and began to frantically try and claw off their armor, burning their hands in the process.

"Someone get them out of the way! Roots, get them out of here, they need help with those burns!" Newt shouted, sending another spurt of fire at the creatures.

"They're going to get through the doorway," Jonathan said tightly.

"I know." Newt glanced around. "They'll chase after us if we go down the corridors, and they're blocked anyway." She looked up. The vents weren't as easy to get through as when she was a child, but she'd made it through the ceiling ones okay. Jonathan was on the smaller side for a man, but would the others manage to fit?

"We'll have to go through the ceiling ducts. There's no other way."

Jonathan reloaded. "They might follow us there, too."

This was true. Newt looked around again. "Got any grenades left?" She shouted.

Marks tossed her back two of them without stopping his firing at the aliens. Newt caught them. "Hold on for ten seconds--try and get the door closed. I'll crawl through and drop this in the room. Hopefully it'll catch enough of them and we can get through."

"What if they get you?" Jonathan barked.

"Well we're screwed anyway." Newt shrugged. "Boost me up."

Jonathan helped boost her to the ceiling. Newt pushed aside the flimsier-than-it-looked grating and pulled herself up. She peered back down, watching the four remaining soldiers fight on. Holberry lay slumped against the wall, her head lolling to the side in a way that told Newt the woman was gone. Zeiss wasn't far behind but still wheezed, his face a mess of melted flesh from the acid.

"Just hold on!" Newt yelled. She began to quickly crawl through. She could do this. She was the ace of Monster Maze. There was no place she couldn't go, nothing she couldn't handle…

She turned right and felt the air coming through the grating change as she entered the ventilation room. It was drier in here, and warmer, as the machinery worked. There was a strange odor, a kind of atmosphere, like she was breathing foreign air. It was cold and dark and actually smelled foreign. It was like she was suddenly on a different planet.

Newt peered down, catching glimpses of massive, hardened pillars twisting up along the walls and up into the ceiling. The twisted bodies of various humans, male and female, almost all of their bodies covered with the sticky bluish-black gunk, were scattered about in the resin. Cocooned, their chests burst open, ribs protruding and dark blood spattered all over their clothes and faces. Newt had to work hard not to vomit. Quickly, she opened one of the pieces of grating and pulled out the pins, dropping the grenades into the room. She then began to retreat.

Slithering silently, glinting in the sparse light, the aliens moved to inspect the muffled thump the tiny bombs made as they hit the floor and…

The explosion rocked the entire room. Newt gripped the grating, shuddering violently. She lost her balance and tipped, her body crashing into the grating. It didn't hold her, sending her falling and crashing to the floor with a thwack that knocked the wind right out of her.

Tiny stars danced across her vision like a conga line and it took several blinks to banish them. She sat up slowly, looking around, hardly daring to breathe. She felt her rifle, slung across her shoulder, digging into her back.

The bodies of the aliens lay, some twitching, others completely blown apart in a mess of scattered limbs. Most of them were piled by the door, but a few were around the pillars and cocoons and Newt was suddenly reminded of flies. Big, black, predatory flies…

Jonathan was in the room in seconds. Newt gave him a weak smile, getting to her feet, but he aimed his gun at her without hesitation.

"Jonathan, what–"

The gun went off just above and to the left of her head. Newt twisted around and saw the alien behind her go down.

Jonathan crossed the room, grabbing her by the shoulders and shaking her slightly. "Are you okay?" He asked.

"I'm fine," she promised him. He didn't look convinced, and his grip on her tightened. "Jonathan, I'm fine. Where are the others?"

Jonathan shook his head. "Marks, Roots and Chaucer--aliens got 'em. Well, Roots actually went down when a bullet ricocheted off a piece of the alien's armor, but yeah."

"And Ziess?"

"Dead by the time I checked on him."

Newt held back her sob. She hadn't known any of them very well, and she hadn't exactly liked Roots, but they'd all been fighters. They had all wanted to live.

And they'd all depended on her.

"I failed," she whispered. "I failed them."

Jonathan gave her a rueful smile. "What, do I not count or something?"

Newt smiled at his poor attempt at a joke. "No, you definitely count."

"Hey." He gripped her chin, tilting it up so that she was forced to look into his eyes. "You did the best you could. You've been crawling through vents and dropping grenades on these buggers this entire time to try and keep everyone safe. It's not your fault."

Newt nodded, but she didn't really believe him. "The exit's just through the next room," she said dully.

"Okay, then," Jonathan said. "Will it be more of the nest?"

Newt thought a moment. "Probably. There can't be a queen--one can't grow this quickly--but they will probably still have a hive mentality. They'll have moved the un-hatched eggs to a safe place near the hatching site, which is this room, so they must have put the other eggs in the next room."

"So we'll be crossing a minefield," Jonathan said.

Newt nodded.

"All right." Jonathan sucked in a breath. "Newt, I want you to promise me right now: if something happens to me in there, you keep going."

Newt stared at him. "What?"

Jonathan gestured towards the other room. "Who knows what we'll find in there. I want you out of here and safe, no matter what. So if that means I stay behind and distract them while you make a run for it, that's what we do."

"What the hell, Jonathan?" Newt asked. "You're my best friend. I'm not fucking leaving you to those… to  _that_ …" She shuddered. "We stick together."

Jonathan gripped her shoulders so tightly that Newt nearly cried out in pain. She knew that he didn't mean to hurt her, so she didn't complain, but his intensity was overwhelming.

"You have to understand," he said. "Because you don't. You never have. I never had a thing against WeYu but I went with you guys to the factory. I know you don't remember it--you were unconscious--but I got you out of there when the fire started and that pipe hit you. I have watched you come here, every other day, and done my best not to fucking give myself away because your dad would kill me. And every day I've wished that you would just open up to me and let me in because yeah, you're right, your story's crazy and painful and most people wouldn't understand or think you're insane but I'm not most people. You're… you're  _you_ , and I would believe anything you said. You get it now, Newt? I'm not… I'm not good at this but I just need you to understand that you have to get out of here. You  _have_  to. Please, please tell me you understand that."

Newt stared at him. Then she said, slowly,

"My mom's not good with words. My dad can be, because he sits and thinks them out carefully, but she's not. When we were getting ready for cyro, my dad was unconscious from drugs to help him with the acid burns. Bishop helped her get him into the tank, and when Bishop looked away she… she kissed him. She kissed dad on the forehead.

"She never knew that I saw, and I think she was embarrassed 'cause she couldn't believe she was actually doing it, but that was her way. Telling an alien she's a bitch and to back off, that's, that's her way of saying it.

"So, um, yes… yes, I understand. And you know that you have to live too, right? No… no staying behind. No hero sacrifices."

Jonathan nodded. "Okay," he said. "Okay."

His hands moved from her shoulders to around her back, and Newt rested her forehead on his chest. She allowed herself three seconds. Three heartbeats, three breaths of simple peace. Three moments of comfort before they headed back into battle.

"Time to go," she whispered.

They broke apart and, guns at the ready, entered the next room.

* * *

"Hour's almost up," Burkaway said.

Ripley looked like she just might kill him. Or at least punch his lights out.

"If that helicopter takes off," she said calmly, "I will personally relieve you of your balls."

Hicks sighed inwardly. Ripley never was good at negotiations, or keeping her temper. Ask that WeYu bastard that had tried to screw them over.

"Look, we still have twenty minutes," he pointed out. "Let's not start arguing until time is actually up."

"But they're loading the nuke on the helicopter  _now,_ " Ripley said. "Don't you dare let that bird leave the ground."

"It won't leave until the hour's up," Burkaway promised.

Hicks put a reassuring hand on the small of Ripley's back. "She'll get out," he whispered. "She got out last time."

"But that was with my help," Ripley replied. "Oh, God, Dwayne… they have to let me go after her."

"We have to trust her, Ellen," he reminded her. "She's an adult now. We have to trust that she can handle herself."

Ripley said nothing, allowing him to hold her and staring at the complex as if the sheer force of her gaze would conjure up her daughter, safe and sound.

"Eighteen minutes." Burkaway intoned.

Ripley forced herself to breathe. Trust Newt. Trust the training they'd given her and the smarts that she was born with. Trust her.


	6. Chapter 6

Eggs.

The room was filled with wall-to-wall eggs.

Newt had been expecting this, they'd just discussed it, but it was still startling to see it for real. There were eggs every two feet or so, and they could barely walk without threatening to disturb one. Newt tried to recall if there had been as many eggs in the queen's lair. She couldn't remember.

"How many fucking eggs did they ship?" Jonathan asked, shocked.

Newt eyed the rest of the room. She couldn't see any other aliens lurking about, and that included the ceiling. Could it be possible? Had they nailed them all? She ran over how many corpses there had been after the grenade attack. They'd torched all the humans that were cocooned before moving onto the next room, and there had been about twenty or so still alive. It had only been a little less than a day, after all. Not a huge amount of time for an army of hundreds to form, like in Hadley's Hope.

Okay, then. Maybe they had gotten them all. Newt didn't let her guard down, but she allowed the tension tightening in knotted ropes around her chest to loosen slightly.

Jonathan was a little behind her, moving more slowly in his attempts not to disturb any eggs. He had larger feet and wasn't as graceful, making it slow going for him. He caught movement out of the corner of his eye.

"To your right!" He shouted.

They both whirled to pump the alien full of lead and flame just as it prepared to leap at them. The creature fell with a scream, twitching, but as Jonathan turned he slipped and lost his balance, slamming onto his back among the eggs.

Newt lowered her weapon, breathing heavily. "I think we got him," she panted, looking around. She didn't see any others, but they could be lurking anywhere.

Jonathan blinked dazedly, too busy getting his bearings to notice the egg unfurling at his side.

Newt turned. "Jonathan?" She asked, concerned.

"I'm fine," he replied. "Just got the–"

The Facehugger used its tail like a coiled launching pad, landing squarely on Jonathan's face. Newt screamed.

"No!"

She kicked various eggs out of the way, running over and reaching for the creature, but Jonathan was still dazed and taken by surprise and the horrible thing was already attached to him, spiderlike legs embedded in his skull and its tail coiled tightly around his neck. Newt screamed again, shouting 'no' repeatedly, filled with anger and frustration.

Once it latched on, it was too late. Once it latched on…

Wait.

The doctors in the colony had succeeded in getting one of them off of a man. He died in the process, but they had succeeded. Could she possibly…?

Newt heaved Jonathan onto her back, firefighter style. His weight nearly brought her to her knees but she struggled upwards, standing and laboriously making her way back through the room. She stumbled along, thanking God that the medical lab was only two rooms away.

The lab was, crazily enough, untouched, the stark lighting of the room revealing its pristine whiteness was unmarred by blood or bodies or alien presence. Newt assumed no one had managed to get to the lab in time, too busy fighting the creatures to bother even trying first aid.

She set Jonathan down on the operating table. He was definitely breathing--the tube stuck down his throat fed him oxygen--but how conscious he was, she didn't know. He was most definitely paralyzed or something, though.

"Computer, show vitals."

The machine whirred to life, examining Jonathan and flahing up his vitals on the screen.

"Diagnostic."

"Foreign object intruding the pharynx. Neurotoxin of foreign nature injected in brain. Limbs and nervous center paralyzed. Foreign parasite in bronchial tubes. Subject: Conscious."

Newt nodded. Jonathan was awake for this. He was awake and… Newt tried not to vomit.

"I'm going to, uh, talk through this," she said. "I know you're awake, so I'm assuming that you can hear me. I'm going to have to run five different operations in the next few minutes so bear with me here." She turned on the incinerator, used to destroy any contaminated gloves and other things to prevent the spreading of diseases.

"First things first: I have to take control of your body again. That's not what it sounds like. I have to make it so that when I removed this guy you're not going to go into shock and die." Newt typed something into the computer. There was a beeping sound a drawer slid open, filled with medicine-filled hypodermic needles. She quickly injected Jonathan with the chosen medicine the computer had prepared.

"This is a muscle relaxant. It will help open up your throat." She injected him with another medicine. "And this is another paralyzing agent. It will stop your body from going haywire once I removed this slimeball's, uh, leg things."

Newt typed more things into the computer. "I'm not certain, but I think that the larvae will try and burrow into your aorta. It's the largest artery in the body, and will provide the most nutrients for the alien to grow. Sorry, sorry, that must freak you out I know, I'm sorry."

Newt grabbed various surgical tools from the shelves, laying them out on the table. "I'm going to stop the flow and get this thing out of your throat first, okay?" She said. "It's got a suction going on around your mouth, so I can't just rip it off because between that and the claws it'll take your face with it."

She took a deep breath, then a small jar with a paintbrush. "This is a sealant. It'll protect you from the acid--they use it to protect the skin from infections while performing surgeries. It's been a huge success in third-world countries." She carefully covered his face--what she could get of it, anyway--in the liquid, which immediately covered his skin in an invisible, protective layer. She then coated her own hands before picking up the surgical knife. She took a breath.

It was now or never.

She began to cut the feelers from the main body, cleaning off the acid and tying off the wounds so that no more acid than necessary would leak out. Newt carefully removed each now-dead limb from Jonathan's skull, carefully plugging up and bandaging the wounds. She dropped the legs in the incinerator and started work on the tail, cutting it off where it attached to the main body and gently uncoiling it from Jonathan's neck. It, too, went into the incinerator.

"I'm going to perform a tracheotomy on you now," Newt said, trying to keep her panic down. She had little faith that the egg laying had ceased despite removing the creature's limbs. "It's to stop the larvae and help you breathe."

Newt carefully made an incision on the anterior part of his neck, which opened a direct airway as she had also made an incision in the trachea.

"This'll serve as a place for me to put a tracheostomy tube. It'll help you breathe without your nose or mouth." She typed into the computer. A tracheostomy tube was lowered by the machine, ready to go. "I don't want to use it unless it's absolutely necessary, but it's ready just in case."

Next came removal. Newt reached in with pincers and pinched the tube in his throat closed, tying it off. After that, she grabbed another needle full of the muscle relaxant and inserted it in the Facehugger. She could only pray that it worked. She then inserted her fingers underneath the main body of the Facehugger.

"This is risky, but I think it will come off." Newt sucked in a breath. Slowly, incredibly slowly, she began to pry the creature off of his face.

Incredibly, it worked. Between the loss of blood, the severed limbs, and the muscle relaxant, the alien came off. She drew it out along with the proboscis, and then dropped it into the incinerator.

Finally, the larvae.

"Computer, prepare full throat and stomach pump." She stepped back.

"The computer will take care of the rest," she said, typing in a few last requests. "It will seal up your incisions, too. Computer, show vitals."

The vitals flashed onto the screen. Everything was normal.

Jonathan made a wheezing noise.

"Stay still," Newt instructed.

She watched as the computer did its work. After two minutes, the procedure was complete and Jonathan's wounds were all sealed up. His head, throat, and stomach were bandaged.

"Diagnostic," Newt said.

The computer's cool voice rang in the room. "Patient condition: Stable. All foreign objects removed. No sign of foreign biological life forms."

Newt let out the breath she didn't realize she'd been holding, and let out a sob. "Take that, you bastards!" She cheered. "He's clean, he is fucking  _clean!_ You fucking bastards, you take that!" She broke down into sobs, gripping the edges of the operation table, grinning all the while.

"Newt…" Jonathan gave a weak moan.

"Shh," Newt said, hefting him onto her back again. She began to move out of the lab and back towards the nest. "We're going to get out of this," she promised him. "We're going to get out."

For the first time since this whole nightmare started, she actually believed it.

* * *

"Four minutes." Burkaway said.

"God  _damn it_ , are you made of stone!?" Ripley shouted.

Hicks looked at Burkaway and jerked his head to the side. The two men moved to the side and began a hot discussion while Ripley continued to fiercely pace.

Four minutes… four minutes…


	7. Chapter 7

"What did you eat for breakfast, cement?"

Newt carefully lowered the barely-conscious Jonathan to the floor, resting him against the wall so that she could open the door and get them out into the open area. She propped the door open with a burnt-out egg (she'd torched them all) and hooked her arms around Jonathan's chest just under his arms, dragging him out the door. She eyed the darkened courtyard. Dawn was beginning to peak over the horizon but the paintbrush stokes of pink and gold dusting the sky weren't enough to really light up the area yet.

"Almost there," she promised Jonathan. He mumbled something. Newt couldn't make out the words but she could guess at his meaning.

"I'm not leaving you." She propped him up against a wall. "I'm going to get to the gate and–"

A whirring sound interrupted her and she looked up to see a helicopter climbing into the sky. She had a definite feeling that it was going to do more than surveillance.

"Change of plans," Newt said, hefting Jonathan up as best she could. "We're going to have to bust out." She managed to get him over to her Jeep, hoisting him up onto the back seat before climbing into the driver's seat. She started the car.

"Okay, baby," she whispered. "Let's do this."

She slowly backed up the jeep and positioned so that she was facing the barricade. "If you're still awake back there, hold on."

She got no answer.

Newt hit the gas, flooring it, the needle on the speedometer jumping as she sent the Wrangler towards the barricaded gate. Her hands gripped the steering wheel more tightly than she'd thought was possible. The bones of her knuckles stood out, white and startling against her skin, and a sheen of sweat suddenly appeared on every inch of her skin. She braced for impact, closing her eyes at the last minute.

Her last thought before breaching the barricade was that she was so grateful she'd caved in and let her dad outfit the Jeep like it was an army vehicle, with titanium framing and bulletproof glass. She'd thought it paranoid at the time but now that they were about to hurl themselves at a massive locked steel gate she thought it was a stroke of brilliance.

The car crashed through the steel gate, opening it just enough to let them get through, and spend away, albeit with a mangled front and an axle that was out of alignment, making the front tires wobble and steering next to impossible. Newt just went with it, keeping her foot on the gas pedal and zooming as far away from the compound as possible.

They were about a hundred feet out when the bomb went off. Newt felt a wave of heat hit her and some kind of primal, massive roaring shoot through her. She didn't so much hear it as feel it, pushing through her and filling her entire body. The shockwave of force from the explosion sent her baby tumbling upside down like it was a toy kicked over by a wayward toddler's foot, and Newt tried not to black out as the sudden centrifugal force wrecked havoc with her sense of balance.

When the world became still once more, she found herself dangling upside down, her seatbelt the only thing keeping her from falling--and a concussion. Newt fought the urge to vomit. Slowly, she unbuckled her seatbelt and climbed down.

"Jonathan?" Newt peered into the backseat.

Jonathan was out cold, lying on the ground. He was, miraculously, unharmed save for a few scrapes. Newt crawled out of the car and out onto the hard ground, where she unclenched her throat and allowed her stomach to heave up the contents of her breakfast and lunch. She might even have coughed up some of her dinner from the night before--she wasn't sure. She wasn't going to be eating Mexican for a while, that was for certain.

"We did it," she breathed. She wiped her mouth off and looked over at Jonathan. A quick check proved that he was still unconscious but alive and breathing normally, his pulse at a regular, steady rate. Newt smiled. "We did it."

* * *

Hicks ran back over to Ripley. "I managed to convince him not to use the nuke, but they're still going to drop a bomb in the next two minutes if she doesn't show."

Ripley shook her head. "It's not enough. If she's not clear of the blast she'll still end up…" She couldn't finish the sentence.

There was the sound of whirring as the chopper took off. Burkaway appeared, issuing orders for everyone to move a safe distance away. Ripley charged up to him.

"You can't do this!" She shouted.

"I have to," Burkaway responded. "We don't have any other choice, Ripley, and you know it. I can't just stand here and wait around all day. I haven't faced these creatures personally but I can tell you that from what I've heard the sooner we blow 'em to hell, the better."

Ripley refused to give up. "Just a few more minutes," she insisted.

Burkaway shook his head. "I'm sorry, but I can't hold off any longer."

He strode away to hop on a vehicle and get the minimum safe distance away. Ripley struggled not to burst into tears. She'd lost one daughter to those creatures. Amanda had grown up, thinking that her mother had abandoned her. She'd lived an entire life that Ripley had been no part of. Now she was about to lose another child.

"Ellen…" Hicks put a hand on her shoulder. When Ripley looked up, she could see how tight his face was. He was trying to hold on to his emotions as well, keep it together for her sake. He'd always tried to take care of her that way. But now, there was nothing he could say. Nothing could make this better.

The horrifying boom went off and Ripley felt her entire world shatter. It all crumbled away, dust in the wind, gone in a flash of light and sound. She'd failed her baby girl. She'd failed Newt.

For the first time in years, Ripley cried in public. She'd never cried in front of anyone other than her husband since she'd first arrived at the Gateway station after her first encounter with a xenomorph. Now, everyone from the trainees to Burkaway got to see her sob, and she didn't care.

Hicks held her gently, staring at the explosion as it went off. He watched a particularly large piece of debris get tossed around a little, and frowned. It was towards the edge of the blast zone, close enough to get the shockwave but far away enough to not get blown to bits. It almost looked, in fact, like a vehicle of some kind… like it was speeding away from the blast…

As the object came to a stop, upside down, he recognized it. It was a Jeep Wrangler, specially reinforced and painted that deep green color that Newt had insisted on and applied herself. He shook Ripley slightly.

"Ellen… Ellen, look."

Ripley turned and spied the car. "Newt?" She breathed.

It was far away, but they could still see a tiny figure emerge from the vehicle and proceed to heave their guts up all over the ground. Ripley broke free of Hicks' arms and began to run, faster than she had ever run in her life, her feet slapping the ground as she hurled herself towards the figure. When she got close enough, she began to scream.

"Newt! Newt!"

Newt looked up and saw her mother, hair flying, arms and legs pumping wildly, streaking towards her. She smiled as Ripley met her, Hicks right behind, and took her daughter into her arms.

"Oh, honey, you're safe, thank god you're safe…" Ripley whispered, clutching Newt tightly.

Newt coughed a little, and Ripley touched her head. "Oh, baby, you got hit."

Newt reached up and felt her head, her fingers coming away bloody. "Nothing major. I must've hit my head while the car was flipping." She looked at her dad. "We're going to have to fix baby up again, Dad."

Hicks smiled. "Of course."

Newt looked at Ripley. "I knew you'd come," she whispered. "I knew it."

Ripley's smile was the last thing Newt saw before everything went fuzzy and she blacked out.


	8. Chapter 8

"While the reason for the government's actions remains unclear, it has just been confirmed that ninety percent of Weyland-Yutani's executives have been sentenced to life in prison, in addition to the company's liquidation and the seizing of all assets by the U.S. Army for inspection and, according to one source, possible destruction. We spoke with…"

Ripley shut off the radio. "Almost there, honey," she reminded Newt in the backseat.

The girl had a faded bruise on her forehead but was otherwise perfectly unscathed from her latest battle with the aliens. The nightmares still came every so often, but they were less ferocious and far less frequent than before. She'd talked with her mom about it, and Ripley said that she'd dealt with it better after she'd faced the aliens head-on the second time.

"You helped me too, you know," Ripley had said. "Caring about you took away my fear. You were more important than fear or anything else those creatures could hold over me."

Newt thought about how she'd stopped being afraid when it came time to help Jonathan get to the Jeep (newly repaired) and get out. She'd focused everything on getting him out. He was more important than her fear.

Like mother, like daughter, she supposed.

Hicks slowed down and pulled into the parking lot. "We're here," he announced.

Newt nearly bounded out of the car before the vehicle had even come to a complete stop. Her parents helped her to carry everything up to her dorm room, where they discovered that her roommate had not yet arrived.

"Remember," Hicks said sternly. "No parties, no sex, no drinking,"

"No fun?" Newt asked.

"And no fun." Hicks stopped, realizing what he'd said. "Very funny."

Newt grinned and stepped into his arms, where they hugged each other tightly. "Hey…" She said, pulling back. "I never did get my present for earning the scholarship."

Hicks looked a little sheepish. "Actually, you did." He nodded towards the box that held her pillows, sheets, and the handgun she'd found in his desk and used throughout her ordeal with the aliens. "That wasn't my gun you found in the desk. That was your present."

"You were going to get me a gun?" Newt asked.

Ripley sighed. "I told him it wasn't the best idea, but he insisted…"

"No, I love it!" Newt said happily.

Ripley quickly thought back to where they went wrong that their daughter was jumping for joy over receiving a deadly weapon as a gift.

"Well, you clearly enjoyed using it, though not in the way I'd originally intended. It was to help you in case you were burglarized on campus," Hicks explained.

"Thanks," Newt whispered.

Hicks nodded, all military for a moment. Newt knew it was because he was trying not to cry. She'd only seen her dad cry once (horrible nightmare, and she wasn't supposed to be watching), but she'd seen him hold back tears enough times (high school graduation, etc.) to recognize the signs.

Ripley wrapped her daughter up in as tight a hug as she could muster. "I remember when you were small enough for me to pick up and sling onto my hip," she said, cupping Newt's face. "Now look at you – you're an adult now."

"'Cause I'm at college, or 'cause I took down WeyYu and slaughtered a burgeoning xenomorph colony?" Newt teased.

"Both," Ripley said with mock seriousness. "And some day, your children will go through the right of passage as they take on a Queen Alien…"

Newt chuckled, burying her face into her mother's shirt and squeezing her. Ripley stroked her hair. "I'll miss you, honey."

"I'll miss you too, Mommy," Newt seconded. "But that's what Skype is for, right?"

Ripley laughed. "I suppose so." She pulled back. "And you're going to thrive here. I know it."

Newt nodded. To distract from the tears threatening to spill over, she cleared her throat. "Well, I should… you know, get… get unpacking and all."

"Right." Ripley nodded. "We'll leave you to it."

She gave her one final hug before the two of them left. Newt smiled and waved as her parents exited the room. Her smile faded as they disappeared from her sight, and she sat down heavily on her unmade bed.

She was going to miss them. Suddenly, college felt like a bigger, scarier challenge then anything she'd ever faced before--a world more vast and dangerous than anything the colony or army compound had cooked up.

"Moving company, team of one," a familiar voice said teasingly.

Newt looked up, her grin returning as she stood. "You're out of the hospital!"

Jonathan grinned. He looked the picture of health. "Got discharged this morning and came right over." He walked towards her.

Newt met him halfway, wrapping her arms around his neck and letting him enfold her in his arms. "So," she asked, "How does it feel to finally be Private First Class?"

Jonathan nodded. "Pretty good."

"It's only fair, after what you went through."

Jonathan shrugged. "Yeah, I guess so. I got an even better reward, though."

"Oh?" Newt asked. She had a feeling she knew where this was going.

"Yeah." Jonathan's smile grew. "I got you."

She let him lift her up, wrapping her legs around his waist and her arms around his neck. "You make a Facehugger joke, so help me…"

"Wouldn't dream of it," Jonathan assured her. He carried her over to the still-unmade bed. "I'm a little too busy worrying what will happen if your parents find out about this."

"They'll get over it," Newt assured him, helping him with his shirt. With his chest bare before her, she got a good look at the thin surgical scars on his body. His stomach, neck, and the sides of his head were all graced with thin white lines. She knew that they would remain with him for life even before he said anything.

"The doctors said that those will always be there." He shrugged.

Newt ran her fingers along the lines, feeling the difference in the skin. "I'm sorry," she whispered. She felt a lump form in her throat.

"Hey…" He said, kissing her eyelids as if that would prevent the tears from flowing. "You saved my life. I'm not going to resent you for that. Besides, the guys think they look cool."

Newt laughed, reaching up and pulling him down to her. "Okay, okay, guilt trip over."

There must have been some adrenaline still pent-up within them, because they got things moving rather quickly. It helped that Newt's new roommate would be entering at any minute.

As Jonathan entered her she thought that yeah, this was a pretty good reward. Maybe she should send those WeYu execs a thank-you card?

Or, even better--a thank you card with a rubber Facehugger to give them a scare. Newt smiled as he kissed her, wondering where she could get the address of the jail they were in.

When they were finished and just lying there (clothes back on just in case), Jonathan gave her a look. "What are you thinking about?"

"Oh… nothing." Newt smiled.

"Nothing, nothing, or setting fire to a factory nothing?" He inquired.

"You know me too well." Newt's smile grew. "The latter."

Jonathan nodded. "I'm in."

Newt laughed, burying her face into his chest. She remembered talking to her mother years ago, right after she'd agreed to marry her dad.

"Was it worth it, then?"

"What?"

"All the aliens and everything."

"Honey, I hate what happened. And it's always going to haunt me. But that brought me you and Dwayne so… yes. Yes, it was worth it."

Newt had to agree. Whether it was extremely bad luck or Fate's right-of-passage, it had definitely been worth it.


End file.
